The cold blue outside the cockpit was filled with death.

Explosions blossomed in the sky beneath him, tearing apart the empty space with each bloom of fire, throwing their deadly shards out in a thousand different directions.

He was too high, no matter how desperately they filled the air below him with flak, he could ride above it. A lonely soul in the freezing void strapped into his Thunderbolt, watching, evading, waiting.

But they knew that too. They weren’t hoping to kill him, just keep him away – pushing his tiny craft and its payload of death far from whatever monstrosities they were making on the ground. 

He could turn back. He could tell High Command that the target was unviable. The enemy on full alert. The approach impossible.

Pilots and aircraft were valuable, and the payload he carried even more so. They couldn’t afford for it to be dropped wide and miss its mark. The sortie would be rescheduled, perhaps tomorrow they would be less vigilant when he came.

And in that time, the Enemy would complete their plans and more soldiers huddled in their frozen trenches opposite them would die. Those, High Command had plenty of. There were always more men and women to put in the firing lines.

He could turn back.

He glanced down and even from this height he could see the sunlight glinting off something on the target site.

Something that wasn’t there before. Some new evil that was being birthed.

His gloved hand grasped the throttle lever, and he drove it forward hard. The Thunderbolt’s engine flared into full power, roaring its own challenge into the sky – and to all those waiting below.

He flipped the wing over and dove hard towards the target.